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Monday, March 14, 2011

Will Gaddafi Reverse The Tide Of The Arab Spring?

By Jackson Diehl
This commentary was published in The Washington Post on 13/03/2011

Ever since Tunisian fruit seller Mohammed Bouazizi set himself ablaze 86 days ago, the Arab uprising has been a mutating virus. That is why Moammar Gaddafi — who has set Libya ablaze — has become so important.

By now it’s almost hard to remember, but Bouazizi at first inspired not popular protests but copycat self-immolations in Algeria and Egypt. Then the contagion altered: A mass secular movement emerged in Tunisia under the banner of liberal democracy, and Egypt’s young middle class took up the same cause. U.S.-allied armies in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain decided one after the other that they would not gun down their own people to preserve the autocratic status quo — and each decision strengthened the principle of nonviolence being pushed by the United States and other outside powers.

Now Gaddafi has altered the virus’s nature once again. Thanks to his “Green Book” madness, Libya stood for decades at the margins of Arab politics. But Gaddafi’s scorched-earth campaign to save himself has not only stopped and partially reversed the advance of rebel forces on Tripoli during the past two weeks; it has done the same to the broader push for Arab democracy. If he survives, the virus of repressive bloodshed and unyielding autocracy could flow back through the region.

Maybe it already has. Egypt has seen dangerous outbursts of violence the past couple of weeks, including sectarian clashes between Muslims and Christians. Security forces in Yemen have attacked crowds in the capital, Sanaa, with live ammunition twice in the past week, and violent clashes have resumed between security forces and protesters in Bahrain.

Pro-democracy forces outside of Egypt and Tunisia have stalled. Algeria and Morocco have gone quiet. In Saudi Arabia on Friday, a “day of anger” advertised for weeks on Facebook failed to produce a significant turnout. And there has been no sign of rebellion in the Arab country whose dictatorship rivals Gaddafi’s for ruthlessness: Syria.

In Egypt, to be sure, liberal forces remain strong. Though still relatively disorganized, the youth-led movement immortalized in Tahrir Square pushed out the prime minister and cabinet left behind by Hosni Mubarak and ransacked the headquarters of his once-feared secret police. Two credible candidates for president, former Arab League secretary general Amr Moussa and former U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei, have stepped forward, offering the prospect of genuine democratic competition and an outcome that Egypt’s neighbors and allies can live with.

But some Egyptians think the country is dangerously close to unraveling. “We may never get to the presidential election,” said one well-informed source I spoke to. The economy, he said, remains stopped; the government may soon run out of cash to pay salaries. Authority of all kinds is crumbling: Factory managers and union leaders are being challenged by their rank and file, and police have largely disappeared from the streets.

This Egyptian had a troubling thought: “What if Libya had happened first?” he wondered. “What would have happened then in Egypt?” The obvious follow-up question: In a Middle East where one dictator is slaughtering his way to at least temporary safety, what might the remains of Egypt’s autocracy be tempted to do if the country’s disorder grows? The country’s new reformist prime minister, Essam Sharaf, clearly has been thinking about this: Last week he warned that an “organized, methodical counter-revolution” was already underway.

What if Gaddafi were defeated and deposed? Naturally, this would not solve Egypt’s problems or cause the Assad dictatorship in Damascus to crumble. It would, however, cause the Arab virus to mutate again. It would give new strength to the idea that the Arab dictators can no longer save themselves through bloodshed. It would probably encourage more pro-democracy uprisings.

And what if Gaddafi’s downfall is brought about, in part, through military assistance from France, the United States or other Western powers — arms deliveries or a no-fly zone? Some seem to think this would weaken the Arab revolutionaries, by introducing a foreign element. More likely it would do the opposite. Just ask a leading opponent of intervention, Post columnist George F. Will.

“The Egyptian crowds watched and learned from the Tunisian crowds,” Will observed last week. “But the Libyan government watched and learned from the fate of the Tunisian and Egyptian governments. It has decided to fight. Would not U.S. intervention in Libya encourage other restive peoples to expect U.S. military assistance?”

The answer is: Perhaps it would. And: If a powerful opposition movement appeared in Syria, and asked the West for weapons or air support to finish off the Assad regime, would that be a disaster?

About Me

I graduated from the French University in Beirut (St Joseph) specialising in Political and Economic Sciences. I started my working life in 1973 as a reporter and journalist for the pan-Arab magazine “Al-Hawadess” in Lebanon later becoming its Washington, D.C. correspondent. I subsequently moved to London in 1979 joining “Al-Majallah” magazine as its Deputy Managing Editor. In 1984 joined “Assayad” magazine in London initially as its Managing Editor and later as Editor-in-Chief. Following this, in 1990 I joined “Al-Wasat” magazine (part of the Dar-Al-Hayat Group) in London as a Managing Editor. In 2011 I became the Editor-In-Chief of Miraat el-Khaleej (Gulf Mirror). In July 2012 I became the Chairman of The Board of Asswak Al-Arab Publishing Ltd in UK and the Editor In Chief of its first Publication "Asswak Al-Arab" Magazine (Arab Markets Magazine) (www.asswak-alarab.com).

I have already authored five books. The first “The Tears of the Horizon” is a love story. The second “The Winter of Discontent in The Gulf” (1991) focuses on the first Gulf war sparked by Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. His third book is entitled “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: From Balfour Promise to Bush Declaration: The Complications and the Road to a Lasting Peace” (March 2008). The fourth book is titled “How Iran Plans to Fight America and Dominate the Middle East” (October 2008) And the fifth and the most recent is titled "JIHAD'S NEW HEARTLANDS: Why The West Has Failed To Contain Islamic Fundamentalism" (May 2011).

Furthermore, I wrote the memoirs of national security advisor to US President Ronald Reagan, Mr Robert McFarlane, serializing them in “Al-Wasat” magazine over 14 episodes in 1992.

Over the years, I have interviewed and met several world leaders such as American President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Margaret Thacher, Late King Hassan II of Morocco, Late King Hussein of Jordan,Tunisian President Zein El-Abedine Bin Ali, Lybian Leader Moammar Al-Quadhafi,President Amine Gemayel of Lebanon,late Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, Late Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat, Haitian President Jean Claude Duvalier, Late United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan,Algerian President Shazli Bin Jdid, Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Siyagha and more...